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The World University Rankings
Presentation at EPFL
• Martin Ince- Contributing editor, THES
Crans-Montana, Switzerland20 March 2006
The THES
• Since 1971
• Weekly newspaper formerly associated with The Times [of London]
• Group including TES
• Online at www.thes.co.uk since 1994
Why rank universities
• Interest in ranking things and people
- Hospitals
- Schools
- Local authorities
- Rich lists; Britain, world, Asians, footballers
- Universities: The Times
National Rankings
• The Times- produced by John O’Leary, editor of THES- Institutions as well as subjectsCriteria for subjects include:- Teaching quality- Research quality- Entry standards- Employability
National rankings (2)
• Criteria for institutions include- Teaching standards- Staff/student ratio- Library spending- Facilities spending - Good degrees- Jobs- Research
The US Comparison
• US News and World Report “America’s Best Colleges”
- Mainly about how likely you are to graduate
- Also student experience eg class size
- However, many other tables eg liberal arts, business, engineering colleges
- Likewise McLean’s et al
Why world rankings?
• Long overdue: higher education has always been very international
• Unique position of the THES
• Universities becoming more global
• Knowledge the real factor in international competitiveness
• Increasing desire for comparative information
Why world rankings (2)?
• GATS
• EU and Bologna
• 2 million students outside home country
• BTA
In addition
• Interest from governments – UK Treasury
• EU, Germany
• Shanghai
How to do it?
• Audience not just possible students
• Internationally mobile staff
• Internationally mobile money
- Focus on:
- Teaching
- Research
- International orientation
Peer review
• Peer review is the way academic value is measured
• We decided to make it the centrepiece of this ranking
• It is the least understood aspect of our work
• So here is the explanation
Peer review (2)
• We begin by assembling a peer review college of over 1,000 people
• Total 2,375 over two years
• International spread
• Subject spread
• Active academics
The question
• Online survey• The top universities in the topics they
know about- Arts and humanities- Social sciences- Science- Biomedicine- Technology
Plusses
• Simple
• Hard to cheat
• Understandable
• Robust
• Self-correcting if large enough sample
Minuses
• Biases include- Age- Size- Name
- Beijing- Loughborough
Audience conservatism
Employers
• Another group who know about university quality
• Innovation in 2005, not perfect
• Mainly private sector
• At 10 per cent of total
• Therefore academics cut from 50 to 40 per cent
• Tokyo problem
Quantitative measures
• Aim to measure universities in terms of
- Student commitment
- Research commitment
- International commitment
How to do this
• Extensive data gathering exercise
• Mainly by UK firm QS• Mix of data sources• National• Institutional• Direct contact
First quantitative criterion…
• Staff/student ratio
• Classic measure of commitment to teaching
• Poses some problems and issues
• 20 per cent of final score
How international?
• Two criteria rated at 5 per cent each
• Staff
• Students
- Again raises issues- Visiting scholars?- EU cross-border students?- Doing full courses?- Geography advantage
Citations
• Like peer review
• Classic measure of research quality
• Use ESI from Thomson
• Our consultant Evidence Ltd
Citations (2)
• Citations per staff member
• Not citations per paper
• Well-understood bias
- against non-English publication
- against arts and humanities
- against national-oriented topics
This accounts for the final 20 per cent
Comparison with Shanghai Jiao Tong
• Not a newspaper• Nobel + Fields prizes• These used twice• Science and Nature• Science and Social Science citations• Theirs is a unique and valuable effort• 500 rather than our 200
What did we find?
• Harvard
• The US – 54 in top 200
• MIT
• Harvard’s lead very large for second year
• But that’s only part of the story
Our vindication
• The top 200 includes universities in 31 states
• US, UK, Australia
• Korea, China, Japan
• Thailand, Malaysia
• Continental Europe
• Developing world (1 in 2004, 2 in 2005)
International commitment
• US shows up badly
• City University of Hong Kong
• London School of Economics, SOAS, and EPFL
• Yale among few US with international staff
• MIT for students
Peer review
• Harvard
• Oxford and Cambridge
• Well-liked universities all over the world
• Little evidence of patriotism bias
• US, UK, Australia, Japan, China, Singapore dominate the top 20
Employers
• Much smaller set, 333 people
• QS contacts or via universities
• Strongly correlated with peer review
• But well-liked universities in many countries
• Not strongly correlated with research
• Some specialist institutions have zero unemployment
Citations
• Medical faculty is a big plus
• Or major biomedical income
• CalTech the winner, then Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Texas
• Big country effect is at work here
Staff/student ratio
• Winner Ecole Polytechnique, France
• US, French, Swiss, Netherlands etc institutions all well placed
• Harvard shows badly here
• Asian and European universities well-placed
• Weak correlation with research – but not zero
Swiss universities in the 2005 rankings
• ETH 21, down 11 from 2004
• EPFL 34, down 2
• Zurich, Geneva 85 and 88
• Basel, Lausanne, St Gallen 127, 133, 150
• Berne 227
• All these big rises
….in detail
Peer review
- 173 in the world, down 63, 22/100
100 score was by Harvard
Employer review, 174 in the world
Staff and students
• QS discovered by direct contact with the university that you have:
• 53 per cent international staff
• 4 in world, ETH is 3
• 40 per cent international students
• 4 in world
Staff/student
• Here the ratio is 2.0
• 5 in the world, unusual
• Up 123 places
• Similar big rise by ETH
• First year effect?
Citations
• This score 23.7, low by Swiss standards
• Big fall
• Opposite side of coin from staff/student ratio
• 3rd Francophone institution, those also very low on citations
Things that don’t work
• Library spending
• Course cost
• Completion
• Entry standards
• Wealth
• Alumni giving
Response
• More work than writing the thing
• Last year about 30 newspaper articles in Mexico alone
• Interest from media, universities etc across Europe and Asia
• Less from the US
Types of response
• Who told you that?
• Reject the whole idea
• Complain about their position
• Think it is about right
• Wonder how to do better
How to do better
• Publish more in the right places
• Be more international
• Be better represented academically around the world
• Have better employer links
• Have enough staff to teach your students
The future
• Important for individuals
- Students
- Academics
The future (2)
• Important for governments
• Ireland, Malaysia, Switzerland…
• Important for business
• Important globally, eg for the EU
Future developments
• New data- Any suggestions?
Refine existing data, eg from employersMore global reach, eg AfricaNew analysesNew entrantsPrizes
And most importantly….
The book
• Planned for 2006
• 500 institutions including articles on the top group and shorter details on the rest
• Data in groups
…really the last slide
• Thanks to
John O’Leary, editor of The THES
Nunzio Quacquarelli, QS
Ben Sowter, QS
Jonathan Adams, Evidence Ltd
and their colleagues